


Metanoia

by Piinutbutter



Series: Terrestrial Apostasy [3]
Category: Hylics (Video Game)
Genre: Backstory, Character Development, Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:35:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26610778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piinutbutter/pseuds/Piinutbutter
Summary: Dracula watches the two sides of the moon, before they grow to eclipse one another.
Series: Terrestrial Apostasy [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1935853
Comments: 9
Kudos: 24





	Metanoia

**Author's Note:**

> Will Piinutbutter ever stop writing elaborate headcanons about moon boys? Tune in next time to find out! (Spoilers: Probably not.)
> 
> I caved and made these a series, since [The Whole of the Moon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14859218) is pretty much required reading to understand this fic's context.

Having grown six eyes to view the world with, Dracula had seen many things. He’d seen two moon dynasties rise, waver, and stumble. They never quite fell, but they held on to their peace with only the thinnest strands of clay. Dracula had been a patient soul. He worked his way from a humble servant to an Overseer, and his word was nigh as respected as the Lunar Queen herself.

A ruler whose clay was rapidly drying. Crumbles of her flesh littered the foot of her throne. The Seers muttered amongst themselves with trepidation. A suitable successor had not yet been identified. One simply didn’t find themselves elected to the throne. One had to be born, bred, and trained for the position. And with all the turmoil that keeping an unsteady peace entailed...there had simply been no time.

Dracula excused himself from the meeting and began drafting an order to send to the vat operator. Two orders, to be precise.

At the time, the Seers praised Dracula for his progressive vision. Looking back on it, Dracula wondered if any of them had harbored reservations about his plan. They would have been wiser than him, if so.

Still. Dracula had never been particularly involved in raising children. The Queen’s development had been overseen by Dracula’s predecessors. Dracula’s own duties - as he was still only a Seer at the time - hadn’t required him to know much of her until she was a fully-formed monarch.

He wondered if the young Queen had been as much trouble as Gibby and Wayne were turning out to be.

* * *

“I absolutely did not.” Gibby’s voice.

“Did too!” Wayne’s.

“Boys, boys! Please calm down.” Their beleaguered tutor’s.

Dracula sighed as he opened the doors to the library. Spats between the princelings were nothing new.

The tutor was rubbing a crying Wayne’s back. A closer look revealed Wayne groping a melted section of his arm back into a semblance of solidity. Gibby was sitting back in his chair, legs and arms crossed, staring at his counterpart with disdain. He looked like a king already.

“Gibby,” the tutor said, “it’s clear that Wayne is injured. He’s upset. Why don’t you-”

“And whose fault is that?” Gibby snapped. “I was practicing gestures with all the recommended precautions. Then this idiot decided to barge in and disrupt me.”

“You didn’t have to burn me,” Wayne said through sniffles.

Gibby rubbed the sides of his head. The gesture looked far too old and burdened for one so young. “You stuck _your own arm_ through the foam flames. Again: I fail to see how any of this was my doing.” He noticed Dracula’s approach and narrowed his eyes. “Have you come to admonish me for Wayne’s idiocy, too?”

Wayne turned. His face immediately lit up upon seeing his guardian.

“Drac!”

Pain and tears apparently forgotten, he ran to Dracula and grabbed at his cape to pull him into a hug. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you in forever!”

“It’s been less than a moon cycle, Wayne,” Dracula pointed out. He patted between the young prince’s horns anyway. He had no particular interest in children, but even he couldn’t deny that there was something charming about Wayne’s boundless enthusiasm.

Gibby, while perhaps less viscerally pleasant to interact with, was important as well. It wouldn’t do to ignore him. Dracula relieved the tutor - much to her gratitude - and sat at the table across from the young one.

“You say you’ve been practicing gestures?”

The sour look on Gibby’s face lifted. There was pride in his smile when he nodded, despite the fact that his oversized head made the gesture almost more trouble than it was worth. (Dracula truly did regret that design decision. It was too late to go back and reform him now, though.)

“I’ve been telling Wayne that you can’t snap at things and hit them with sticks forever,” Gibby said.

“You _so_ can,” Wayne said, but neither acknowledged him.

“Gestures are quite an advanced form of combat,” Dracula said, flipping through the book Gibby had been referencing. “It may be easier to learn beneficial gestures before focusing on detrimental ones.” He glanced over at Wayne and smiled. “That way, if one of you gets injured - say, by putting their arm in a flame...”

“Hey!” Wayne huffed.

“...you can help each other recover.”

Gibby kicked his legs beneath the table, and above it, fiddled with an amorphous orb of foam flame he’d summoned above his palm. In that moment, he actually looked his age. “Healing isn’t very interesting, though. Won’t we have servants for that?”

“There’s an old Earth saying...” Dracula said, and ignored the disdainful pinch of Gibby’s face at being expected to take advice from lowly Earthlings. “’If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.’”

Gibby closed his hand into a fist, snuffing the flame out with a wet squish. “I suppose you have a point.”

Wayne tapped his foot impatiently, looking between Gibby and his guardian. “So. Can we get back to playing, now?”

As Dracula stood and left, he was followed by Gibby’s indignant protests. “I was not _playing_ , Wayne. I was _studying_. Something you should be doing more of, if you ask me.”

Dracula fixed the wrinkles in his cape. Boys would be boys, he supposed.

* * *

It was not a surprise when Gibby came to banish him. Gibby pointed out as much.

“I suppose those many eyes of yours have finally given you some foresight.”

Dracula didn’t turn to face him. He was on his balcony, gazing out at the lunar landscape. The mighty curve of craters, the idle glisten of moondust...his home really was beautiful. It only made sense to get one last good look at it.

“It was inevitable,” Dracula said. “After Wayne.”

Gibby’s cape swished as he came to stand beside Dracula at the railing. Dracula didn’t flinch. That didn’t mean he didn’t want to.

The king - rightful successor he may be, but usurper he still was - stared at the man who had facilitated his creation. What was in his eyes, Dracula’s vast vocabulary couldn’t describe.

“I believe it was you who told me: If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”

Dracula laughed, staring down at his hands. “I suppose I did.”

They were quiet for a long time. Dracula wasn’t used to so much silence, where the kings were concerned. He still expected to turn at any moment and see Wayne come strolling in the room, loose and enigmatic, to whisk Gibby off to their duties.

Gibby broke the silence. “I’m glad you aren’t asking me why I have to do this to you. It spares me the effort of explaining that I have ears all over the palace. I hear every word you say about me.”

 _And yet,_ Dracula didn’t say, _you’re explaining it anyway._ Gibby had always loved the sound of his own voice.

Quite suddenly, Gibby reached over and grabbed a handful of Dracula’s cloak. Dracula stumbled back, but all Gibby did was hold it, keeping him there. The moment stretched on.

“Your Highness-” Dracula began, but Gibby interrupted. He spoke through something approaching a smile.

“If you didn’t want a tyrant, perhaps you shouldn’t have made one.”


End file.
